Greeley, others concerned by collective bargaining bill

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A collective bargaining bill set to go before the state Senate has Greeley officials concerned the measure could infringe on the city’s home rule rights.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, would allow firefighters to engage in collective bargaining without approval from local governments. The proposal, which passed the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee on Wednesday with a 3-2 vote, also establishes a procedure for an impasse and prohibits strikes.

As a home-rule city, Greeley would typically keep that kind of mandate at the local level, said Sharon McCabe, director of Human Resources.

“We feel like any time you can control something or do something locally, that is what we want to do. So this is really an infringement on that local control,” McCabe said.

She said Greeley’s 97 firefighters already engage in collective bargaining — it was a charter amendment approved by voters in 1991 — and the city’s collective bargaining practices under the new bill would not necessarily be affected.

But if Greeley firefighters ever choose to elect a new collective representative, then that rep’s rules could be replaced by those in the bill, said Kevin Bommer, deputy director of the Colorado Municipal League.

The bill’s rules include chiefs and supervisors as members of the bargaining unit, which is somewhat unconventional, Bommer said. He said it would mean the pay and benefits of supervisors would essentially be determined by those they supervise, which he said is troubling. Bommer cited other concerns, such as the special election requirement in the instance of an impasse, that seem to give firefighters a “leg up” over the public entities employing them. In the special elections case, Bommer said cities would not be able to campaign as easily as fire departments because of the Fair Campaign Practices Act.

Tochtrop said that’s mostly a moot point. The Senate committee on Wednesday added language to the bill to emphasize it would not affect existing bargaining units, she said. If firefighters like their bargaining agreements, then they will not vote for a new representative, in which case they will not have to use the rules established in the bill, Tochtrop said.

She said the intent of the bill is to ensure firefighters have a place at the table in negotiating their wages.

Tochtrop said the constitutionality of mandating home rule cities to allow collective bargaining could certainly be argued in court, which is fairly common.

But if state legislators let the threat of a court battle or the idea that they were infringing on state constitutional rights keep them from acting, she said, “We would never do anything.”

Greeley fire Chief Duane McDonald said he didn’t have a political opinion of the bill. He said the collective bargaining that Greeley firefighters use today is effective.

Bommer said the Municipal League is also concerned that voters will be disenfranchised if they wish to put an initiative on the ballot that would disallow collective bargaining. Under the current draft of the bill, he said voters would be precluded from doing that.